


Work-Life Balance

by HikariYumi



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death of patients, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Insomnia, JD Has Issues, JD cares too much, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Sleep Deprivation, dealing with death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 12:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15413310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikariYumi/pseuds/HikariYumi
Summary: JD is known for caring too much and it becomes a problem after one of his favourite patients is diagnosed with stage four cancer.





	1. Invested

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD has to tell Mrs. Flynn that he can't do anything for her. It's not the first time he has to break bad news, but still he founds himself unable to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there,  
> happy that you found your way here.  
> This is actually a fanfiction from pretty much exactly one year ago. I forgot it in my drafts and thought I'd posted it already.  
> Anyway, I was rewatching the entire show at that time and had a real thing for JDs empathy for patients. So.. I used that.  
> Hope you like it a bit?^^°  
> ~Hikari

John Dorian never had trouble finding sleep before he started his medical career at the Sacred Heart Hospital. Nowadays it was a lot more common. Not necessarily because he had so much company in the nights but work always took priority over life.

That was a completely natural problem for all doctors, or people working in medical in general. Turk and Carla didn't have it any better and Elliot was openly struggling with balancing out working shifts and having a social life with her boyfriend.  
Still, somehow JD seemed to handle it worse than his friends.

"Laverne can you check on Mr. Delarosa in 408 for me, please?"  
The nurse shot him a long glance, looking as if she was mentally debating if he had been nice enough to her to warrant such a request.  
"Sure thing, q tip."  
"Thank you, you're the best!"  
The older woman grumbled something unintelligible under her breath.

~

Time was flying by as it did so often in the clinic, patients came and went, emergencies cried for immediate attention and before JD realized it was already time for lunch.  
"Hey JD, do you join us in the cafeteria? I've heard they've got cake today!" Turk appeared seemingly out of nowhere, smiling broadly and moving with barely contained energy. He was obviously having a good day. Wait, hadn't been the big heart operation where he'd been asked to assist today?  
"Sorry chocolate bear, you've to bear going without me - haha." His best friend rolled his eyes but didn't give JD the opportunity to defend his pun.  
"Seriously, you're getting way to invested in your patients. There's cake! But whatever, I'll go and tell Carla about the operation! Can you believe that? Dr. Wang said next time I could do it alone!"  
He was gone in a flash, shouting a quick 'unbelievable' before entering the elevator.

JD sighed and returned to the nurses station to grab a new chart as well as one of those chocolate bars the women used to hide in one of the drawers.

~

"What do you think, Dr. Dorian, will I be okay?"  
JD quickly averted his gaze and pretended to check the data on Mrs. Flynns chart even though he knew it by heart.  
She was a lovely lady in her late forties, never shying away from lighten up someone's bad day. Unfortunately, JD couldn't do the same for her, she was going to die. Mrs. Flynn has had breast cancer in her youth and despite best prognosis it had not only come back but had also infected the bone marrow.

Mrs. Flynn smiled calmly, but her brows furrowed when JD didn't answer and instead just stared at the paper.  
"Dr. Dorian?"  
"Oh- oh, no it's fine. I mean I'm still waiting for some - um test results. You know? Sorry, it's been a rough day."  
The wrinkles on the woman's forehead smoothed out and her warm eyes regarded JD kindly.  
"You really need a break, don't you? You need to treat yourself better."  
"Yes I know, and I promise I will, but now I've got to go to the next patient. Sadly I can't stay with you all day, even if I wish."  
The last part wasn't a lie, JD really liked her and she was his favourite patient by far. Somehow she managed to make him go all warm and happy inside, the kind where you just wanted to close your eyes and burrow yourself in the other persons arms.

She couldn't die, she didn't deserve that. Mrs. Flynn also deserved a doctor who wasn't too much of a coward to be honest with her.  
JD quickly pushed his thoughts away from the woman and tried to distract himself. For some reason his usual daydreams had grown sparse, something he felt deeply unhappy about. Those silly imaginations had been an easy way to get through the strenous daily life in hospital. Right now he was often far away with his thoughts, but usually he didn't really think anything at those times. His head was merely filled with void and exhaustion.

In the ICU Dr. Cox was skimming trough a few charts as if searching for something.  
"Hey Dr. Cox, everything alright? You know I-"  
"Okay Tamika, I get that it's the time of the day where you usually empty your big fat heart in front of me - oh, oh Britney has stolen my nail polish again, even though I told her so many times now that it's the only colour matching my favourite earrings, this is sooo unfair - but I'm seriously neither interested nor do I have the time right now. Capiche?"  
JD just sighed and turned to go to his next patient.  
"I just wanted to offer my help..." he murmured more to himself than to his mentor. Dr. Cox' special groan followed him to Mr. Carlsburgh and JD just wanted to go home and sleep.

~

"Joanna, there you are! I hope I'm not interrupting something but sadly one of these annoying sick patients needs the attention of a doctor. And since no one of those seem to have time, you have to do."  
Wordlessly the younger doctor raised from the empty stretcher in the hallway and went back to work. He still had to talk to Mrs. Flynn.  
But this could wait until after Mrs. Rogers Foley catheter, JD decided.

~

It turned out it had to wait for another few hours, filled with one of Turks post-op patients going into cardiac arrest and Mr. Delarosas status becoming critical.  
Humiliatingly JD didn't mind that too much, he was still trying everything to evade giving Mrs. Flynn bad news.  
"You have to tell her sooner or later, JD and you know that. Why don't you just get it over with?" Elliot sipped at her coffee while passing JD the one she brought for him. He only muttered a 'thanks' and left without answering.  
Yes, why did he have so much of a problem suddenly?

~ 

In the last few hours of his shift it was alarmingly quiet. The patients were tended and mostly asleep, food and medication had been given out for the night, so most people used the downtime to tackle their paperwork. Normally JD would crash in the doctors lounge, sharing the little wooden table behind the sofa with either Turk or Elliot, sometimes Doug, but he wasn't prepared for another round of 'why didn't you tell Mrs. Flynn already?'  
So he did what every other coward would do: he hid in one of his other patients rooms, precisely the one who's been in coma for the better part of a year. It was highly unlikely that Mr. Ashum would wake anytime soon.

"How long do you plan to let Mrs. Flynn wait? She didn't deserve spending the day anxious about her results."  
Despite people startling him being a common occurrence, JD jumped to attention nevertheless. Dr. Cox stood broad and tall in the door, looking enviable fresh for someone who'd worked the last 20 hours straight. Not the first time he wondered how his mentor could pull that off, surely JD himself looked as if he'd been run-over by a truck a few times.  
Apropos he hadn't seen the janitor all day, that was unsettling and meant rarely something other than big problems.

"She's going to die, so maybe being anxious and hopeful is the better alternative." JD argued weakly, stroking back the limp strands of his hair which had flopped into his face gracelessly. He was so tired. Maybe coffee would give him another little booster.  
"But thats not your decision, is it?"  
And then Dr. Cox was gone again, vanished before JD could say something, explain his problem. He flopped back down into his chair, sending an exhausted glance to the papers on the floor.  
Not for the first time he wished he could be more like his mentor.

~

Turk had asked if he should give Mrs. Flynn the bad news, pointing out that he was doing this so often he had developed a good routine. And while JD was thankful for the offer; he had to decline, he'D got the same practice after all and Mrs. Flynn at least deserved her own doctor treating her.  
So JD had decided to tell her before he went home, just before his shift ended, but now finishing time had passed nearly three hours ago and he still hadn't done anything. Instead he hovered at the nurses station, just out of Mrs. Flynn's view and hoped no ONE would notice that Dr. Dorian should've clocked out hours ago.

"Hey Natasha, why-"  
Of course Dr. Cox had to show up exactly when he didn't want him around, he had to have got a sixth sense for that. But tonight, today, JD couldn't take another joke or degrading comment on his expense, not today.  
"Leave it, just leave it, will you?"  
He stared up at his mentors confused face, feeling no satisfaction about having thrown him out of the loop.  
"I'm not in the mood, okay? Save your insults for tomorrow, or you know what? Just do it now, I don't care."

Silence.  
The two nurses at the station looked up from their work but quickly decided that the little scene was too boring to deserve their attention.  
"Okay, you'll come with me now." Dr. Cox grabbed his arm and pulled JD with him into a more quiet part of the hallway. "Spill, you've got two minutes to tell me what your damn problem is."  
Something in JD snapped, he could feel it happen, how slowly every inch of his body grew hot with an unhealthy mixture of anger and frustration.  
"What my damn problem is? That I can't tell Mrs. Flynn that she's about to die? And you know why? Not because I'm an idiot or an ass, at least not ONLY that, but because I like her! She's smiling and cheerful despite her pain. But as soon as I tell her, she'll change!"  
"Damn newbie, you really do like her."  
Dr. Cox crossed his arms in front of his chest, appearing even bigger than normally.  
"Yes I do, would you believe it? Little newbie needs nice words and encouragement so terribly that he uses his patients to get it. Isn't that humiliating? Well, I take what I get."

JD even sounded bitter to his own ears, but he couldn't help it. He was searching for mother and and father figures more or less openly for the better part of his life now. Apparently that happens if your own parents don't fulfil these roles. And Mrs. Flynn was unfortunate enough to be exactly what JD needed, open, warm-hearted and affectionate.  
And besides everything, he really didn't want to make this woman, who'd done so much for him the last weeks, sad.

Dr. Cox had raised his arms by now, doing his weird thing he normally did when incredulous.  
"Tell her, JD, and then go home, you look like hell."  
The young doctor slumped, anger puffed away as quickly as it had come, leaving nothing else than desperation. But Dr. Cox was right.  
He watched his mentor leave with certain, dominant steps, hoping for some kind of last-minute rescue, but it didn't come. Of course didn't.  
It was his problem and he had to deal with this alone.


	2. Affected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD is struggling after Mrs. Flynn's death and looses another patient. He wonders if he really should be a doctor.

It had been two weeks since Mrs. Flynn had been told that she was going to die.  
JD had been wrong, she hadn't changed, not when she'd been with him at least. After she had gotten to know that not only her cancer was back but it had already spread into stage four, her reaction hadn't been denial or crying. No, she hadn't even been overly shocked, just been a bit more pale than usually.

Maybe it had been her doctors empty gaze, the cold and numb fingers clutching Mrs. Flynn's chart tightly as some kind of lifeline, that had given her a warning for what was going to happen.  
Embarrassingly enough it had been her, the patient, who had recovered faster and had put on her usual, kind smile on her face just like every other day.  
"C'me here." She had said, raising up in her bed and opening her arms as much as she could with the IV plugged into her arm. "It's alright, dear, it's alright."  
Other than her no one knew that JD had cried in that moment and he would make sure that it would stay that way.

~

Only a few days later it had turned out that Mrs. Flynns prognosis was even worse than anticipated. It was as if the cancer had just waited for everyone to know it was there before starting to rage earnestly. Quickly, her pain had grown to the extend where the pain medication couldn't do too much anymore.  
Mrs. Flynn died one and a half weeks after she was diagnosed.

Naturally, the world didn't stop afterwards, as convenient and wanted it would've been for JD. Unfortunately, he was still a doctor and his patients counted on him, so he had to put on a smile and joke around as he was used to. He dreaded every minute of it.  
"Hey Bambi, why don't you take a break and get a bit of rest? Laverne and me will keep an eye on your patients."

It had been a while since Carla had called him Bambi. It must've stopped somewhere between her and Turk getting together and her moving in with them.  
JD wasn't sure why this realization irked him in the way it did.  
Nevertheless he was grateful for the women helping him out like this and he made sure to thank them wholeheartedly. He should bring cake after his day off next week.

~

JD didn't sleep a minute. Instead he lied in the issued metal beds, staring through the darkness in direction of where he new was the light yellow ceiling. No one had bothered to repaint the room in quite some time. Not that anyone paid attention to this fact anyway. When doctors got the chance of sleeping in double or night shifts, they couldn't care less about the interior or colour paint.  
After roughly thirty minutes the door opened and Elliot entered, huffing silently before throwing herself unceremoniously on to the bed unter JDs. Apparently she hadn't noticed him, he found that he was glad about it.

He liked Elliot, he really did, their shared past was enough clue of that, but lately he wasn't in the mood to listen to her babbling about her latest relationship and how she was boycotting it again. JD didn't feel too bad about his lack of interest in his friend's private life, he was more than certain that Carla would fill in his place quite thoroughly.  
He turned to his side, now facing the rooms wall, fingertips brushing over the pin needle marks and scratches of doctors who had spend their free time here as well.  
The bed on the other end even had a tally mark scratched into the wall. 

The hospital told it's story through details like this. Generations of doctors had worked and studied here, slept and thought. These traces were what they'd left behind, the stories what they would be remembered as.  
JD wondered if someone would remember him as well after he left the hospital.  
Dr. Cox would never be forgotten, even if he would leave the hospital. He didn't need to leave such physical trace of his existence, his actions over the years would take care of that for him.  
That was something to admire, JD decided.

~

The next time something disrupted the quiet of the room was the succinct sound of his beeper. JD jerked out of his sullen musings and hastily checked the displayed message.  
Under him Elliot mumbled something before raising as well, without doubt checking her own devise for emergencies.  
"Go back to sleep Elliot, it's for me."  
While he climbed the narrow ladder down, he caught a glimpse on his friends sleep-muddled face and her ruffled blond stands. If JD wasn't mistaken had she swapped shifts with Doug so that she would have the weekend off. So she was having a double tonight. She could use any sleep she would get.

"Haven't even seen you up there." Elliot murmured, before obediently flopping down back into the cushion, moaning with bliss.  
At that JD couldn't help but smile before leaving as quietly and quickly as he could.

~

"Hey Turk, can you look at one of my patients? The meds don't help so he might need surgery."  
The surgeon looked up from the chocolate bar he had just gotten out of the vending machine, clearly enraptured by the candy.  
"Uh, sure thing. I'll meet you there?"  
JD nodded and attempted to leave his friend to his snack when the janitor came around the corner. Both of them froze mid-motion, looking at each other, waiting to make a move. But then, whatever it was, was broken and the janitor just turned on the spot and vanished out of sight.  
That was unusual.  
JD cautiously made his way through the hallway, noticing Carla standing there, smiling innocently at him. "Hey JD."  
He really had to bring some cake.

~

Today's round seemed to go smoothly, Dr. Kelso seemingly was in a good mood. He didn't try to outface one of the residents in particular and wasn't even posing too hard questions. So, JDs failure was pretty uncalled for in his opinion.  
"Doctor... Dorian. Can you tell me why your patient still hasn't gotten better in the last three days? Maybe you should actually treat your patients, because we need those beds and we are no hotel. Tell me what your plan for ... Mr. Rodruigez is?"  
All the other residents turned to look at JD when he didn't answer for a few long, agonising seconds.  
"Doctor Dorian? I do have some other things to do, so answer my question.", Dr. Kelso prompted, a tad more impatient than before.  
"Well, we- I, the tests are still running, sir."  
"The patients don't come here for tests but to get meds, so you better hurry up or throw him out if you can't find anything!"

No one laughed or grinned, no one dared to at the rounds, knowing they would be the next ones tested and humiliated. Nevertheless, JD knew what they were thinking, he could imagine it quite vividly.

Truth to be told, he didn't have a clue what Mr. Rodruigez could be suffering from. He had been worried about re-occurring high fever and chest pain, but no diagnosis seemed to fit quite right. In the end, JD hadn't even bothered to come up with a new idea and had just started all tests he could think of, hoping for a lucky strike.  
He was embarrassed by his incompetence and had even asked Elliot for help, but she didn't have an idea either.  
And Dr. Cox, well, he had made it quite clear that JD should be able to handle things like this on his own.

~

Mr. Rodruigez had been discharged this morning. Without diagnosis, just with a description for an antipyretic. It didn't sit right with JD at all, but he couldn't help it, the tests had come back all negative and Kelso had put his foot down after realising what was happening.  
He hadn't seen Dr. Cox all day.

~

JD was hiding in Mr. Palmers room again. The coma patient was surprisingly good company these days and a week ago JD had noticed that it was quite relieving to talk to him as well. Maybe the patient wouldn't welcome him with a smile or motivating words as Mrs. Flynn had done it, but it was better than nothing.  
"Hey there, Mr. Palmer. How are you doing today? Guess, it's the same as always, isn't it? You know, I messed up again today, couldn't help yet another patient. Kelso sent him home because I didn't find the answer in time. I just hope the patient won't die because of that. That it's really nothing bad and that it'll pass.  
But what if it doesn't? If he suffers because of me? I'm not even sure anymore if I'm a good doctor, if I'm ever going to be one. I fail at the easiest things, rounds, giving bad news or even sleeping properly. I'm not sure if the whole thing is making sense anymore. Maybe I should just quit, make room for someone who can actually help patients."

JD sighed and burrowed his head in his hands honestly contemplating this possibility.  
"Newbie, you know that he can't hear you, right? He's been in that state for ages now, no way you couldn't have noticed."  
Dr. Cox stood in the doorway, face oddly unfitting to his usual teasing words.  
Quickly JD tried to regain composure, brain scrambling to find a suitable response.  
He lamely settled with "Well, people say it helps to talk to coma patients." Which was only met by a wordless stare.

"Go home, JD, you're done for today. Get some sleep, you sure need it."

~

JD managed to get a few hours of rest before his alarm went off for work again. It seemed like that was all his life was lately.  
Work. Go home. Try to sleep. Work. And repeat.  
It was incredibly exhausting.  
If Dr. Cox had witnessed JD's words to Mr. Palmer he didn't mention it the following day. That was to equal parts relieving and frustrating. Instead, the older doctor resumed mocking him, even though less aggressively than normal, maybe he was in a good mood.

Feeling more rested than in the last weeks, JD doubled his efforts and caught up with most of his paper work and his patients seem to be doing alright.  
Things were going better as they had in the last few days and he hoped it would stay like this just a little longer.

~

Things came crashing down two days later, starting with two of JD's patients being transferred to ICU with unknown complications and ended with an emergency arrival of Mr. Rodruigez. The man was rolled into the ICU by the paramedics, who were informing him hurriedly, that his heart had stopped beating while still in the ambulance.

Nurses gathered around the stretcher immediately, ready as soon as JD had taken over from the paramedic.

But even after adrenaline shots and chest compression, Mr. Rodruigez heart refused to start beating on its own again.  
He was dead.

"Time of death, 8.34 p.m."

~

"No one had an idea what Mr. Rodruigez was suffering from. And all the tests came back negative. It's not your fault, JD, and you know that."  
Elliot looked at him over the book she was currently researching in. She was supposed to hold a presentation in a few days.  
"Yes I know, but I still think it's my fault, you know?"  
His friend nodded vaguely while her fingers played with a page of the book. "I do. But it's not the first patient you've lost."  
JD scoffed. "I know that, too."  
He had to think of Mrs. Flynn.

~

"Okay that's enough, you're running around like a zombie and I can't have you endanger patients because of that."  
Dr. Cox had snatched JD just as he wanted to go to the cafeteria. Turk who had been next to him shot the older man a meaningful look before following Todd who planned to get some food as well.

"It's not like I'm doing that on purpose!", JD snapped, feeling the exhaustion and irritation wearing him down. Dr. Cox was right of course, but he didn't want to hear that right now.  
"Never said you do. What's up."  
That was surprisingly considerate, JD found and his anger cooled down again, back to just weariness.

"Haven't been sleeping much lately, especially not after everything that's been going on."  
The older man let go of JD's shoulder but his eyes didn't leave him for a second. "You've tried sleeping pills? They're useful if that's a temporary issue, not if it's going on longer. When did it start?"  
That was a surprisingly hard question, he couldn't remember clearly when sleep had becoming harder and harder to achieve. It had been even before his struggles with Mrs. Flynn, but when and why exactly...

"Not sure, I think it's just the stress, it will solve itself sooner or later."  
"Do you really think so? Or do you just want it to be like that?"  
JD shrugged, eyes wandering away from his mentor and to the clock hanging over the nurses station.  
"Okay, here is the deal. Tonight we'll go out for a beer. We'll watch football and maaaaybe, talk about this. Alright? Just because I've got responsibility for your mistakes. Not because I'm into this feely crap. Got it?"

After all the time working at Sacred Heart, JD knew when Dr. Cox was making an effort. And this was exactly it.  
"At nine?" He asked, already feeling a bit less horrible than before. Despite the rough behavior the older doctor was a good person who had problems just as everyone else and until now he'd always been helpful for them all. Dr. Cox had been working in medicine a lot longer than Turk or Elliot, even Carla, so he'd gone through the same problems already and could offer advice.  
"Thanks, Dr. Cox."  
"Get lost now, newbie, I've got stuff to do."

~ 

In the end they did talk a lot more than intended, something Dr. Cox tried to argue with afterwards. But it actually helped a bit. Some of the guilt JD had unknowingly carried around had lifted, and it had felt good to just talk to someone who could actually respond.  
Eventhough it was mostly consisting of mocking one liners.  
But the most important thing that had happened during that night, that what had convinced JD that he wasn't a complete failure happened when they parted ways in front of the bar.

"You're doing great and I can't believe that I have to say that, but I'm glad that we are colleagues."  
Something that wasn't quite a hug, but close enough that JD choked on his breath and couldn't react until the older doctor had already let go, followed, then Dr. Cox turned around and stalked off into the dark.

Yes, maybe he could do it. Maybe he could be a good doctor. And maybe he could even sleep tonight.


End file.
